The above predictions contradict one another and, apparently, do not take into account the fact that climate scientists now agree that they have no clue as to how fast global warming is occurring (faster than all computer models predicted) nor as to the scope of the consequences (really, really bad.)

World population will grow larger even as billions are displaced, water runs short, food production falters, oil disappears, and diseases go pandemic? And the "more millionaires" will be earning how again?

What about the rise of despotic, tyrannical regimes that obey no laws? Rising crime rates as desperation sets in? Christian Warriors going on the attack with the help of their new Air Force recruits/converts? The continued criminalization of thought?

HNY08! The year we all learn how to lock and load...

That's an interesting concept. I like that idea of Eutopia.

However, the idea that this crop of politicians are any different (the one's bought and sold to us, not the one's pushed off the stage)and therefore might be induced by some miracle to talk about the true and critical issues of tomorrow, and after possibly being elected, to actually do something about it, seems kind of speculative.

All things considered.

Hello Folks.

I'm the last futurist to graduate for UMASS-Amherst with a degree in Future Studies before the program was killed by the administration. I attended several World Future Society conferences until I realized that their futurism was centered around corporate power. I didn't find them supportive of feminist points of view.

I'm running for President. My name will be on the ballot in the state of Arizona. My campaign is centered around building a solar-powered arcology (ecological city) on AZ state trust land. You can read about my campaign at: http://doctress.wordpress.com/ and http://projectwhitehouse.wordpress.com/

For an ecofeminist form of futurism please go to http://www.lovolution.net

Sincerely, Doctress Neutopia

Frank1569: I noticed the same contradictions. I would add that the time frames need to be taken sequentally. In other words, which is likely to happen first and what will be the impact on the rest? Like a dommino effect.

PJD: I enjoyed Walter's programs too. It all seemed so simple and hopeful in those days.

My sense is that resource wars, particularly in view of peak oil, is going to dominate that reality of the near future. First will be the escalation of the oil wars (I predict that Russia and China will win this one). Then will come the water wars. The first thing that is going to happen, probably in 2008, is going to be the collapse of the global financial system, which in turn is going to cause the economic collapse of globalized industrial nations. And America is going to be the hardist hit first. The response in all nations will be the necessity to return to community food sovereignty and the re-establishment of the commons to survive. Basically the entire world will have to return to living within the means of its available resources and the environmental sustainability of this planet.

Actually I see this scenerio as being a possitive one. The human race is not going to change direction away from extinction until there is a major shake up. Individuals are not going to get off the dime until they are forced to work together in order to just survive. This really isn't all that depressing. Accepting the inevitable and being prepared actually offers some hope for the future. And for me, I'm hoping that the economic collapse happens before climate change is irreversable. Mother Nature and the planet win under any scenerio. The only question is will the human race survive?

We are so accustomed to thinking of ourselves as detached from and above the natural world that it bears emphasizing that a "significant extinction event"--a tragedy of unimaginable proportions for all the species going away--will kill us too. We can't live with half the plant and animal species on the planet gone. Even cloning them won't help if their habitats are destroyed by warfare, waste, pollution, and overpopulation. All these big problems are intertwined and require a radical reimagining to get to their roots.

As a kid, I uesd to love Walter Chronkites program "The Year 2000". It was laden with predictions for the early 21st century - gas-turbine automobile that would travel on hands-off 200 mph freeeways; commercial space travel; and of course, all those "monorails".

But, the most widely accepted future prediction was that computer and other automation technology would lead to such productivity that everyone would work a greatly reduced work week at a very adequate wage, enjoy enormous amounts of leisure for recreational and cultural pursuits, and pvoerty woud be virtually eliminated. In those days talk of "the future" was, mostly, effusuvely optimistic. Calling someone "Utopian" was a compliment, not derisory.

Well how many of these predictions came true? The only one I know of is some of the capabilities of computers, which they under-predicted. But it sure didn't lead to an increase in anyone leisure time or wages! Quite the opposite!

Futuristic predictons are always much more useful as statements about the present, or the era when the prediction was made rather than the future. The idea that technology and productivity gains being passed to the worker in the form of better pay and leisure time seem laughable nowadays. But in the 1960's - the era or the Great Society, a growing union-wage fuleled middle class, and the worst aspects of capitalism being reigned in, such a prediction made perfect sense!

Red pill or blue pill?

Here's a decalogue of things to get upset about as we enter the Year of the Rat.

Perhaps the scariest phrase is Gonsalves's own: "insatiable and metastasizing global economy."

One wonders if there's time to apply the good-sense solutions Gonsalves recommends in his final notes. Or, have we already passed the "tipping point," as Morris Berman ("Dark Ages America")and others lament.

It's interesting to speculate about getting our politicians to talk out loud about the Big Issues of tomorrow. But since we can't get them talking or thinking about the real Big Issues of today--beyond media-defined "hot-button" issues like illegal immigration or gender politics--what's the likelihood? And, perhaps more to the point, what's the point?

Our politics have been defined by myths--the myth of our democratic system, the myth of a social contract, myths about American exceptionalism, and so forth--and our politicians have been our greatest drum-beaters for those myths and for their own and their sponsors' self-interest. I see no mention of a Revolution in Consciousness in The Futurist's list above, so one must wonder just how we go about getting from here to there, building a "bridge," as Mr. Gonsalves suggests, to a world that is sustainable, life-affirming and fair.

We certainly need "vision" if the dystopia of the futurologists is to be avoided. We've been racing towards the precipice for a long time, in love with the baubles of commercialism, in love with speed, and the glib formulations of politicians and our business-saleman class. If past is prelude, we'd better figure out where we went astray before barrelling forward. I recall some good advice from my early days: "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all they getting get understanding."

What a gret discussion! Perhaps you are all wishing for too much from politicians.....most are bought....most love power too much which addles their characters....most are in office for dubious motives.....and you expect them to look to the FUTURE!!!!! The sound bite campaign that I see among the presidential candidates shines little illumination on current problems let alone the problem if limited resources and constant growth of the GDP and the urgent need to go to war and get others to go to war to satisfy the military-industrial conspiracy. A first step would seem to be change the overwhelming importance of money in the electoral process....it is doable but it will be difficult because big money will resist with everything that its got.

If the future produces a billion millionaires it will be because inflation has made money increasingly worthless.

Anyway, what basic monetary unit is being (or will be) used to measure a million units of that currency? USD, Euros, bat, etc.

In Hondura, a million Lempiras is worth nowhere near a million British Pounds, while a million pounds is not worth the same as a million US dollars, ...

By the time the world-economy is predicted to spawn a billion millionaires, there probably won't be one world currency of trade.

Global inflationary pressures also make it difficult to measure the global number of the impoverished. The other difficulties in measuring poverty are: 1. the arbitrary average income for an arbitrary number of family members that are both set as the cut off point that divides a poverty income from a non-poverty income. This cut off point is constantly manipulated for political purposes.
2. the extent of a family network (or lack of) that channels free food, services, loans, etc. to a low-income family.

For example, many Russians survived the Yeltsin years because they had relatives who were peasant farmers. Thus urban relatives were able to get free food from their countryside relatives.

In addition, Russia still possessed a working, cheap mass transport system that allowed impoverished urbanites to maintain access to the free food produced by their country cousins.

However, in the US, the poor don't have these widespread family networks, thus they tend to possess less access to free food, services, loans, clothes, furniture, and so on.

I think that povery is increasing rapidly because both family networks are collapsing as a repsponse to rapid 2dn and 3rd urbanization and many urban poor don't have easy access to their country cousins...many of whom work on below subsistence farms.

One thing you know about predictions is that they don't come true. Where were all these genius predictors warning the general populace about Bu$h the inferior PRIOR to 2000.

It could be a lot worse or a new problem could come up that makes these look relatively tame.

Move north, get a gun, and plant vegetable gardens before its too late.

Particularly american, or westernized human beings have fallen into a trap of becoming impatient. As though eternity were too short. Perhaps we were designed to adventure out to the stars. Our adventurous nature to date has been accompanied by noncooperation with the rest of the species, with the earth, and with the other creatures that inhabit the earth with us.

Without being able to manage our human affairs patiently, one infinitesimal step at a time, honestly and with humility, in the goodness of time, in the here and now, why or how would we be able to arrive at a natural future that arrives at its own pace?

"1. The world will have a billion millionaires by 2025.
Meanwhile water-shortages and poverty will grip two-thirds of the earth's population. Wealth-gap? How about wealth chasm?"

How about: Ruling Elites using humans as expendable commodities?
http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=142&Itemid=1

Let's not forget that it has taken over 20 years to move 300-500 million people (worldwide) out of poverty. And the term, "out of poverty", could mean that these people are earning just enough money to put food on their tables and nothing more; food which was not available them prior to earning 25 cents per hour or $1 per day for their labor. The standards by which poverty is measured throughout the world is inconsistent and grossly misleading!

Interesting article, interesting discussion. Bad prognosis, if the predictions are correct.

So why isn't stuff like this on TV? Where are all the proffered solutions? Why can't any of our politicians tell us how serious this stuff is? Even Kucinich, who is just about as honest as a politician can get, doesn't give us this. He gives us a possible future, a picture of a potential perfect world, but doesn't say anything about how truly bad it could get. He does give us the first big step, though, which is to get out of Iraq - now.

What we really need is someone who will tell us we've got to start making serious steps, one at a time, to prevent the catastrophic picture that's painted in this article from coming true.

Our politicians talk a lot but they don't actually do anything.

We need to end the Iraq War, but what's stopping us? Fear that we'll lose all that lovely oil after spending so much time and lives trying to control it? Fear that the entire Middle East will be so pissed off at us that none of them will even sell us oil?

We need to get rid of any cars that get less than 40 mpg to buy us time, but what's stopping us? Fear by the oil companies that their profits will fall, certainly, but also fear by car manufacturers that they won't be able to sell those cars? Maybe also fear by the consumers that high-mileage cars, which are small vehicles, won't be safe in a collision?

Maybe the biggest fear is admitting that we've got a serious problem in the first place, a global problem and not just one confined to our own country, and that we'll need help to solve it.

That's the thing about America: it's always considered itself apart from the world community, apart and somehow better, and its politicians, for their own greedy purposes, have fed this belief to the best of their ability. They have fed us all fear, ego and guilt and turned us from the most confident people on earth to the most paranoid, all to line their own pockets, but they've overdone it, and now it's starting to eat us all alive.

But guess what? We're not better than the rest of the world. We're the only country that's ever used a nuclear weapon. We're the only industrialized country that doesn't have a real health care system. In fact 40-million Americans don't have any health insurance at all (I'm one of them). We're seriously in debt, despite our wealth. Our poor are supporting our wealthy, and that's really wrong. We lost a war to a little tiny country in Indochina, despite our much-vaunted war machine, and now we're losing another war in another relatively small country in the Middle East. And finally, we're losing a war to the planet, a war that we absolutely cannot win. We need to be nice to Mother Nature, not fight her.

So maybe the first and most important step is for the American people to be told that their leaders have been leading them the wrong way, and that the country has made a lot of errors and needs to regroup and start fixing them. And you sure can't fix a problem unless you know you have one.

The good news, I guess, is that America really was looked up to by the rest of the world, once upon a time, and its core, its Constitution, really is a good one, so it's theoretically possible for it to find its way back to itself and start over, hopefully before it's too late.

Politicians, you need to help us, instead of harming us, because when we go, so will you.

that's a great article, Gail, thanks for posting the link!

I again reccomend Margaret Atwood's Oryx and crake for all futurists.

When I read the title for the article, I thought "Eutopia" refered to Eurocentric Heaven.

Glad to see that there is another side.

ticonderoga January 1st, 2008 11:13 am

"What we really need is someone who will tell us we've got to start making serious steps, one at a time, to prevent the catastrophic picture that's painted in this article from coming true."

I guess you missed the 30 second time allowances Kucinich got in the Presidential debates; hardly enough time to discuss anything in length!
If you go to Kucinich's website you'll discover that he not only wants us out of Iraq but he also wants us out of the WTO, NAFTA and any other trade agreements which were designed to increase the wealth of the ruling elite while the rest of us become their servants at minimum wage or slightly above.

Those currently who are determining reality, as Rove explicated so blithely, are improperly deducing reality's nature.

Therefore those of us who find ourselves at the very smallest end of the determining scale of things, are being marginalized out of existence.

Kucinich is a hope that reality could be other than it currently is. But apparently he is not being allowed to do or to be in proportion to what actually needs to be done, so that we are left only with hope.

our truthful hopes are being marginalized and we are feeling the effects when we contemplate our future.

Gail, your point is taken. I think maybe I worded that part of my post incorrectly, though. Kucinich has been telling us things like this for a long time and he is, IMO, by far the best candidate for the job.

I suppose that what I should have written was "What we really need is for our leaders to get together and collectively tell us we've got to start making serious steps, one at a time, to prevent the catastrophic picture that's painted in this article from coming true."

The problem, I think, is that too many of us don't want to hear this, so most of the politicians, who want to get elected above all else, just don't tell us this, and the very few who do (Kucinich and Gravel) are marginalized by the MSM.

But if they all got together and told us the same thing, it would be much harder for us to ignore it. The trouble is that they tell us so many different things that we don't know what to think.

remember the book, 'Ecoptopia'?

Good discussion. Many good thoughts. I too actively support Kucinich and will vote for him in the primaries. But when faced with reality, I also know that he will NOT get the Dimwits nomination. If an election actually happens in November, I haven't a clue as to who to vote FOR. Maybe I'll write in Kucinich.

The problem for me is that I believe that the train of our lives is heading into the future at exponentially higher speeds. We no longer have time to waste on trying to predict the future or what we think is the best course of action is for a better country and a better world. Events and outcomes are going to come at us so fast in the next 12 months, that the best we are going to be able to do is figure out how to get together and help each other get through each day as it arrives and prepare for the next day's chaos.

It's payback time folks. And the "Awakening" is coming and will not be denied. Hopefully, those that will survive will then be able to look back and say "Never again!". Then will be the time to rebuild for a future of sustainable peace.

Best wishes for the New Year.

yes, well, I couldn't disagree with the logic of your prognosis, Rebel Farmer, but I seem to have been shot with a dose of "you never really know what's going to happen next-itis." Even though when it does happen, you smack your brow and say, "of course, how could I have missed it. It was so obvious." Nevertheless, infuriatingly perhaps to those who dare to try, it's generally been so entirely different from what anyone anticipates it's being, even on a day to day basis, that it's kind of profound how impossible it is to predict. Squirmy, unisolatable, indefinable.

This is why, this being the first, I am always arguing for the sake of "hope." Even if I don't survive an impending cataclysm, still, I'm hopeful that life on earth will continue its, I think, meaningful purpose.

I would like to thank also Sean because he continually manages to write articles that are not quite what they seem to be, that don't lead you to definite conclusions, and that encourage you to think on your own. What could be better than that?

Also, this inclines me to think on one of my favorite topics which is "prophecy."

I mean, "prophets" have had an exasperating tendency to speak in conundrums which the rest of the world then interprets, in the moment, as a form of insanity.

"Modern" prophets must have a tough time because they must think, "if I say anything 'visionary' people will think I'm nuts. So I'm going to keep my mouth shut." Basically because it's only natural that people would come to that determination, and the ages have categorically proved that other prophets have fared no differently. So, why bother coming up with something prophetic?

It's like, hypothetically, if someone prophecies, "you shall wed your sister/brother." On hearing this the typical human would, in an enraged panic perhaps, then do everything possible to avoid that reality, and then end up doing it anyway - in a manic craze.

He or she might do this, for example, by in the end making the simple discovery that everyone in the entire world is one's brother/sister so, if they can't resist the wed part, which they wouldn't manage for some aggravating reason either, attempting to avoid either would be comically ludicrous.

So, what are you going to do? Whatever it is is on the way. Just got to deal with it.

geoff: I hope you don't think that I am trying to predict or "prophacy" the future. I'm just trying to point out that from looking at the facts and figures, it's pretty clear that we are in for a very rough ride in 2008. And my guess is that it will happen early in the year. Of course, I could be wrong. But there doesn't seem to be a downside to being prepared and getting to know my neighbors in anticipation that we might need each other if the shit hits the fan. My theory (and I have one for every occasion) is that we should all work toward the light, hope for the best, but be prepared if things don't go the way we had envisioned. Or "better safe than sorry". In that vein, I've already stacked up about a years supply of toilet paper. I win either way. I have TP that is only going to increase in price/value over the next year and I can use it in any event. That along with all the other essentials that I think me and my neighbors will need in hard times. If I'm wrong, what is the harm? But if I'm right.......

The issues that Futurists speak about are mostly not new. Authors and essayists have written about them for years. Many techniques such as Delphi, Cross Impacting, and Scenario Writing have been utilized for many decades. Although long term and short term predictions have been made for many years , not many have listened or read the materials. It is very difficult to predict the Future and it is generally recognized that the more accurate predictions tend to fall within a five year time period.

One of the more accurate predictions was the clear understanding of the impact of the internet and it's effects on the change process. They were very early to recognize that the decentralized architecture of the internet would decentralize power as it flowed from the center in the form of Government and Corporations to people at the outer edges.

They recognized that increasingly as we entered hyper-culture that organizations would have to change in order to deal with the chaos generated from rapid change.
The barriers between workers and management would need to be lowered to facilitate communications in all directions. The concept of a company vision was determined to be fluid and the new vision would develop and become a reality only when all employees adopted the new vision and not just management.

The value of intellectual and professional talent became more obvious to the success of an organization with the recognition that the negative effects of bad decisions would be multiplied by rapid change. Good decisions would provide profitability in spite of chaos if the organizations architecture were decentralized and that groups would be organized in relation to personality types
and structured to operate more efficiently than random models of group formation.

Once we turned the page of history and crossed the threshold to a new millennium, creativity and decentralization became the models for the 21st Century. That is why it is so unfortunate that Bush and his 20th Century throwback centralized style became so harmful to America. After seven years of bad decisions Americas standing in the world has fallen dramatically and Americans have suffered significantly. Bush is attempting to apply the leadership style of the last three centuries to the 21st Century. He has attempted to apply colonial policies to a post-colonial world. The results have been a horror story for the U.S.

What we have seen in his government is the application of extremist conservatism as a reaction to rapid change. Those like him in government, business, and religion have attempted to dominate and bring to a halt the change processes. It hasn't worked and the old centralized power structures are crumbling. Decentralized and creative systems are replacing them. The process of transformation has been ugly but it is happening. Evidence if this is reflected in the power of the internet.

Persons who now use the internet can publish their views and it is beginning to have a significant effect. The signing of online petitions to protect the environment has resulted in tremendous political impact. The same is true in the political arena. This years elections will embrace change at the expense of conservative restraint. Even the Republican pollster Zogby has begun polling on environmental questions for the first time. The effect of peoples internet actions are increasing in the political arena. The old centralized decision making styles cannot keep pace with the newer decentralized creative styles and the old power structure is crumbling ever more rapidly.

Finally, because of the internet, the entire world is changing at the same time for the first time in history. The results have been tremendous and chaotic. A new foreign and domestic policy paradigm is required if America is to compete effectively with the rest of the world. We have heard the word change used by presidential candidates, but to date I have not heard one word from any of them that would lead me to believe that they know, could voice, or could effectively use the dynamics of change. I believe they are still stuck in the old paradigm, all of them. To a person they have not taken the time to understand what Futurists have been telling them. They still don't get it.

Doom & Gloon: I think I love you. What a great observation! And I think you are truely right. I myself can't even keep up with the change, but I have truely embrased it as the only way to be heard. And believe me, me "representatives" at both the Federal and State level are getting an earful. I feel like I am educating them instead of the other way around. They all know me by name right now. And I think they actually know that I am claiming my power as a voter. We aren't there yet, particularly with Senators that still use snail mail to respond two months later, but I think they will be quite surprised how educated and connected the electorate has become by the results of the 2008 election. That is of course, assuming that there will be an election.......

Rebel Farmer,

um, no I wasn't disagreeing at all. I was sort of agreeing in tenor, but also kind of ellaboratingly
encouraging all of us who tend, who might be inclined, to see a darkness ahead, to also realize that life has a certain wonderfully ambiguous unpredictability, in just about all of it's parameters. In the way the garden goes about it's business I'm sure? possibly? I don't have one, but I think it must be so. I saw one one time, but, never mind.

This is of course, or I wouldn't spend part of my day dwelling on it, something that many of us, who see inevitability in the course of events, tend to do. . . naturally I think you and I would argue, pondering the next year. And I would think also that it looks an awful lot like next year is very decisive.

uh, I don't mean to speak for you, but only one of us can write a blurb at a time - if you should ever revisit this article.

It is also one of the afflictions that many of the wise folks talk about down through the ages, which must mean, as far as I'm concerned anyway, that it's one of life's more profound (subject to interpretation certainly maybe not by a neocon) predicaments. Do neocons have intuitive ability, or has it been irradiated? certainly something else to wonder about.

I like to use Hamlet as an example of this, I'm sure many others do too, ie a metaphorical instance of this phenomenon. Here you have an intelligent person who "seeing" into the unknown, fairly accurately so it turns out, owing to his acute intuitive abilities - ack - gets himself in a heck of a situation, in short. Now I would hazard a bet that many of the common dreams folks find symptoms of that in their selves all the time. It's kind of a thinking person's proclivity.

Hamlet's resolution to the situation, and a teacher once explained this in a classroom I was in, was much the same as that expressed by the Beatles, "let it be." Or in Hamlet's case, "let be." special providence in the fall of a sparrow and so on.

Which, is as much to say that, you can either prepare for an event or not prepare for an event and it is more or less all the same thing as either may bear no fruit whatsoever, or either may bear fruit, but as we do not know, there is just no telling (Ecclesiastes) - not that I think you shouldn't collect TP if you think it's worthwhile. . .?

And not, as I've kind of rambled in other posts, that we shouldn't proceed according to the idea that by any means within our individual means we should do what little we can to try and stave off the (possible) inevitiable. Vote for Kucinich and such.

Anyway, I guess it is a part of that triumvirate where along with hope, there is faith and charity. So, continue with those Rebel Farmer, as I see that you do in your other posts, and I think possibly we will be fine, come what may.

Because there is a certain logic to the idea that a poor person, owning only hope, will find that that one possession will see her through better than all else that she owns. Or, will run into it inadvertently while seeking it out.

Take revenge into our own hands, ie, cooperate with that we perceive,intuitively, to be "evil" or "wrongheaded," or "ignorant" and one may end up hoisting one's self on one's own petard.

Not that you didn't know that, I humbly submit, I am just elaborating from my own humble perspective where I, sadly, have no garden of my own.

geoff: I'm not sure what to make of your post. I'm just a simple person who does know how to garden, collect seed, and start the cycle all over again. There is something wonderful about being connected to the soil that sustains us. Even the bugs are fascinating and integral to the process. I have to admit that slugs are definitely on the "to die" list however.

Geoff - I sincerely hope that you start a garden, even if it is pots on a sidewalk somewhere. There is much to be learned by watching and nurturing the life that sustains us. Besides, it's really cool to grow your own stuff and watch it grow again. It's a power I can't describe exactly. But I like it.

exactly! sort of what I'm saying - pretty close, although I'm sad I'm incomprehensible! got to continue to work in the garden on that. take out the brush.

sort of what I'm saying - but of course speaking for yourself! and the stuff you are fortunate to do.

what could be better than that?

thanks again, Sean, for the discussion!

happy new year!

One of the best conversations I have read on CommonDreams and on such a critical issue!!!!!!!!

Thanks, particularly Rebel Farmer, Gary Steven Coreri, Doom n Gloom and ticoneroga.

There truly is an emerging higher consciousness taking place out there, though less in the U.S. than other developed countries, because we Americans are deep in the belly of the capitalistic beast.

Sean Gonsalves begins by telling us how technogy and artificial intelligence will answer our problems. Sorry Sean, with all the technology produced since the incredible building of ancient Rome, we are still "The Planet of the Apes". Technology is not the answer, the human imagination is.

Thanks Sean, you made me happy with your later thoughts of Eutopia, a vision of a preferable place, but one that has a BRIDGE, the architecture that can get us from here to there.

I am surprised in all the great commentary above, there was no mention of just such an EXISTING BRIDGE, .......THE EARTH CHARTER, the greatest document ever written by Humankind.

The Earth Charter was voted down by the U.N. , primarily by the U.S., as a threat to Western industrial capitalism, and rightfully so,..... if you are a capitalist.

Enough said on this, as I have previously commented on the Earth Charter in regards to David C. Korten's recent article. But I do plea for all good minds above to Google The Earth Charter,....and reflect.

Rebel Farmer, every good spirited effort results in positive outcome. It sometimes takes a while to tip the status quo but every positive effort moves us a little bit closer. Also, every positive effort weakens the status quo because they only gain strength from negative efforts.

I too garden and save seeds for the next season. I plant my garden in the traditional ndn way, i.e. corn, beans, and squash in the same mound. I plant Cherokee blue corn, a form of dent corn or feed corn. It is not as sweet as some of the modern corns but it is good and highly nutritious. I also plant Seminole squash because of its drought tolerance. I have stopped planting the old Cherokee beans because they are too small and require the pulling of two strings before breaking them. I will continue to maintain the seeds however. I am now in the process of selecting a climbing bean to replace it.

I also plant the old Cherokee tobacco and Cherokee Purple tomatos. I do share my crops with the local wildlife but I do find it necessary to fence off those for myself.

I also plan to reestablish a wild prairie with the indigenous plants that once existed there. I plan to begin with a three acre tract and comb the seeds and add to it each year until I have established about 20 acres of prairie.

I shell and grind my corn with old hand shellers and grinders. It's time consuming and takes a lot of energy but I just do a little at a time as I need it for corn bread or corn flower. I also grind my tobacco in an old hand grinder and use it for ceremonial offerings throughout the year.

I still go to farm sales and purchase all the old hand gardening tools that I can afford. You can never have too many hand tools. A friend has been buying old horse or mule powered machinery and has a good number of them. He also purchased a piece of property with a good running spring on it. Our families are preparing for the difficult times that we believe are ahead of us.

THis is a fascinating disucssion....
And I would like to offer that there is a 'bridge' not just a vision out there that would help us transition--Many of you are already walking on it...we just need to make it much more visible...

Riane Eisler recently wrote a book, "Real Wealth of Nations...creating a caring economics'...and it confronts the "dominator" value system that currently overrides every system that we've created--and to which The Futurist's predictions are created from.

First exposed in Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade--this new book shows the outcome of this Dominator value--at the extremes of our economic systems such that 'caring'--for humans and the planet has been virtually ignored while 'dominator/making money' has taken precedence over everything. This is creating 'eco-suicide'...

Above someone said "we're waiting for our leaders to show us the way out of this mess...." But our leaders can't do this because they'd have to upset the consumer economy--which to them, looks like economic suicide. NO leader is going to do this...

So, here we are...faced with "Eco-suicide or Economic-suicide"....or so it would seem.... BUT, as Real Wealth of Nations shows....if we change the 'value' to one of CARING, we can actually create a vibrant economic system AND avoid eco-suicide. This is the 'bridge' to the new vision...
www.rianeeisler.com www.realwealtheconomy.com

so our future hinges on the development of beautiful gardens according to what we seem to think. I guess that's what you call beating swords into plowshares.

I hope so too.